Vern

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Aconcagua

Buenas Días, Mountain Zone. This is Team Omega high on Mount Aconcagua. Today is our summit day. We're looking forward to a clear, but blustery day. A big low front is starting to head in and we're going to run for it and see if we can tag the top today — weather permitting, of course.

We spent a rather restless night last night, with 30 mile-an-hour winds buffeting the tent and our headaches banging away. But this morning we feel fairly rested, we've been laying our bags for 14 hours now, so we're going to get ready to take off, so wish us luck. And hopefully the next time we talk to you guys we'll have summited Aconcagua.

The critical numbers today, at 5:00 this morning on the 23rd: we're at 18,980ft at mountain camp II. It's 4 degrees outside and a balmy 22 degrees inside our little flying saucer of a tent. We have 30 mile-an-hour winds out of the west. Bob's blood-oxygen saturation is 73% and his pulse rate was 57. My blood-oxygen saturation, 75, and 48 for the pulse. See you after the summit. Bye for now.

—Vernon Tejas, MountainZone.com Correspondent

EXPEDITION DISPATCHES